Research has revealed an underlying link between identity construction and academic success for adolescents (Nasir & Saxe, 2003); however, research has not addressed how students' identities are formed and negotiated in the cultural practices of elementary school. This article examines how early elementary Mexican-origin bilinguals' racial,…

This article reports on an interpretative inquiry into 14 tertiary vocational students' educational experiences on the Chinese mainland with a focus on their strategy use in learning English. Using sociocultural theory, the inquiry reveals the profound impact that the learning context had on the research participants' strategy use. The data reveal…

This article addresses two long-standing tensions in the education of linguistically marginalized youth: (a) the cultural tension, or cultural combat, that such students engage in as they form their linguistic identities, and (b) the tensions between the development of critical language pedagogies and the lack of their broader implementation due…

This article explores the long-standing problem of ascribing meaning to individual acts of codeswitching. Drawing on ethnographic data from bilingual classrooms in Corsica, I situate the analysis of codeswitching within the more general question of the interpretation of speaker stance, which is defined as speakers' positioning with regard to both…

This article addresses the relationship between the call for authenticity, its relocalization in other contexts, and the use of English. Hip-hop forces us to confront some of the conflictual discourses of authenticity and locality, from those that insist that African American hip-hop is the only real variety and that all other forms are…

This study investigates how immigrant minority pupils in a primary Flemish 5th Form construct their self-ascribed identities in terms of their cultural and linguistic affiliations. Two generalizable findings emerging from these pupils' discourse seem to shed light on synchronic variation and diachronic change in their strategies of identity…

Although second language (L2) research has explored connections between sociopsychological variables and L2 socialization processes, relatively few investigations have compared heritage language (HL) learners to traditional foreign language (FL) learners in the North American context. This descriptive study compares the learning and acculturation…

Respect for persons has been widely acknowledged and discussed as a key moral dimension in education and teaching English to speakers of other languages. Christians believe in this value, particularly as it is articulated within scripture and tradition. Recent critics, however, seem to perceive a basic incompatibility between a Christian religious…

Literacy today is characterised by rapidly changing and emergent forms of meaning making in the context of increased cultural and linguistic diversity, giving rise to the multiliteracies pedagogy of the New London Group. This article responds to these imperatives, reporting findings from a critical ethnography investigating the interactions…

In this article we explore some of the ways that language ideologies--shared beliefs about language forms and practices embedded in social conflicts over power--mediated the language choices of 4 girls in peer activities. These activities took place in the Spanish and English first-grade classrooms of a dual-language program that enrolled children…

The negotiation of integrated home and school identities of 3 second grade Hispanic English language learners (ELLs) included in an English-dominant classroom are explored through sociocultural paradigms, with an emphasis on the role of the individual's agency in the social construction of identities. In addition, we examine the conditions within…

In this discussion, the author highlights the relationship between language and identity by discussing notions such as language as a symbolic resource (Heller, 1995) and language as a badge of identity (Buruma, 2003) in a society. The reasons why a number of bilingual writers have decided to write in their second languages are explored, and issues…

This article investigates the identity negotiations of a group of Korean-born Korean American (KBKA) high school students. One of the major tensions that arise from within the Korean American community is who should be considered an "authentic" member. Therefore, in this article I illustrate (a) the way American-born Korean Americans' (ABKAs')…

Building on the idea that "discourse does ideological work" (Wodak, 1996), this article examines how school leaders use metaphors that convey as well as construct concepts of diversity, intergroup relations, and equity. The author draws on data from interviews with school leaders in the United States who were focusing on improving race relations…

Through interpretive case studies, I report how, in an advanced Japanese literacy course, two Canadian university students from different enthnolinguistic backgrounds engaged in composing in Japanese quite different ways. The multiple sources of data, including the viewpoints they expressed in interviews and questionnaires, were examined…